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Thursday, March 28, 2013

My, how time flies. We've moved to Pueblo, Colorado, I have a lovely (and smart-as-a-whip) Grand-daughter, and a new cat (the two are, in fact, logically related), I'm no longer in PA practice (though trying to re-enter), the shop's in pieces from the move (still), and My Lady Wife is happily ensconced in a new position with BuR.We love Pueblo, and always knew we'd end up in the southwest eventually, things just happened a little sooner . . . The new house has a lovely view of the mountains, but sometimes I miss my trees. So, Gen has been after me to restart my blog for a while now, new moves, new friends, new hobbies, etc. and I knew I'd get around to it sooner or later, but now, tah-dah, new information!Buried somewhere back in the dog cart posts I mentioned that the only extant primary source we have for a dog cart is an illumination in the 13th century Decretals of Gregory (the so called Smithfield Decretals). When I started the cart the British Museum had taken down the image from their web site. They sent me a very nice reply to an email back then saying basically, "we only have so much space on the server, and we decided to take that book down and have no plans to put it back up, but we'll happily sell you a copy of the image at an exorbitant price."Kingdom A&S approaches in the Outlands and I've decided to finish the last tweaks, make a few re-dos, complete smithing the harness parts, and enter the Dog Cart. Step one was to recheck the British Museum's price for a copy of the pic, when, lo and behold! the manuscript's back up!

So, now that we have an image we can expand--where'd I go wrong? I still maintain a basket weave for the cart bed is a logical choice, but we can see in the illumination the sides are "clinker built" of over lapping boards clinch nailed at the overlap. We can also reasonably conjecture that the bed may have been built more like a coffer or palanquin and the poles do indeed mount central to the bed sides and were not extensions of the bed's frame.

From the harness we can see the straps that cross the near dog's shoulders are wider than is common in modern dog carting. Also the lead dog and second dog are not harnessed like a modern dog sled, but that the lead dog's leather strap traces run to a central point in the second dog's yoke, and the second dog's rope traces run to the poles, not the near dog's harness.

Interestingly, the pulling straps are only the yokes, there are no straps around the bodies of the dogs.

The lead looks a little "hang dog' (pun intended) because this arrangement means he's doing most of the work. The unhappy looking guy in back is probably pushing because the happier looking near and second dogs are slacking off--or maybe he just thinks it's his turn to ride?

Another conjecture for the rational of a dog cart also occurred to me when I looked at this picture. The rider in the blue cote is winding a hunting horn. A dog cart would be useful for bringing in dressed game from a hunt for boar or stag.

I'm really glad the British Museum elected to put this fascinating work back-up, and even gladder I hadn't made the harness.

Saturday, July 3, 2010

Best laid plans and all of that. I'm on the road for a bit, so I'm sorting the big stack of pics for the oseberg cart, and some (a lot) of really crappily organized notes; but I'm working (perforce) with Horvendile (the laptop--man, I miss those two big monitors) and it's a pain, but we'll get there.

So, I recently found out I'm going to be a grandfather... I'm alternating between happily bumfuzzled and "I'm too young to be a grandfather!"

OK, logically, 53 isn't isn't exactly the first blush of youth, but as I often say: childhood is fleeting, but immaturity can last forever. (Gen pointedly agrees, sigh) Anyway, I've wanted to build a cradle for a while (I've got a measured drawing of a period one stashed somewhere). Grandkids, sheesh, I only graduated high school 35 years ago.... Well, maybe I'm not too old to be a granddad, but I'm certainly not mature enough; though I always wanted eccentric grandparents (mine were nice, don't get me wrong, but they were pretty staid), my daughters, OTOH have been blessed with a lovably eccentric grandmother (my mom, 78, red hat, screaming red sox fan, conducts a kazoo band--'nuff said).

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

So, that ozoney smell seems to be coming from a lightning-fried modem. Until the new one arrives from Amazon in a day or two I'm limited to a crappy little laptop. Trying to move all the pics and text from the Fafnir (the big computer) to Horvendile (the crappy little laptop) and edit a post is just too much bother with all the other stuff I have to get done before the in-laws arrive this weekend.

Assuming all goes well, I'll have the posts finishing up the dog cart up on Friday, and Monday we'll be starting a new wagon (the oseberg).

Monday, May 24, 2010

So far we've cut down trees, chopped up wood, made poles, crossbars, wheels, and assembled the frame. If hounds were attached to the poles (and a dog in harness) there would be something to pull.

To make the cart useful it needs a bed. Again, there were many options, from lashing or trenailing some boards, to a simple ladder frame for lashing a load to.

In the end I decided a wattle or basket weave would match some of the historical record, as well as being both strong and light.

Ideally the way to do this would have been to find a "basket ash" of the proper size and splint the necessary splints. Since I lacked a suitable basket ash I ripped splints by eye from long lengths of green tulip poplar. Ripping long, thin lengths from green wood with the table saw is not recommended. All my fingers are still attached, but then I'm not merely a lunatic: I'm a careful lunatic. :-)

After the splints were ripped, the widest were laid out on the bed of the cart and rough cut to length.

Then the splints were clamped with a temporary cross brace at the back and cross pieces were woven in. This was made easier by using a long dowel to pry apart the splints.

There is no cross piece at the axletree and all the splints lie flat on top of it. When the bottom of the bed was woven the front was also temporarily clamped, and the cross pieces were clamped with spring clamps to the frame. Everything was then left for a few days to settle and dry.

The sides then followed much the same procedure. They were originally held in place by friction, but I later trenailed them to the frame. Where the cross pieces of the bed rest on the frame they are simply held down tightly by the bottom batten of the side. The pieces holing everything together at the tops of the sides are clinch-nailed with cut copper nails.

The final pieces of the bed were cross bars front and rear. These were originally tacked with long cut copper nails, but the end grain did not hold well and I eventually trenailed them with "trenails" made from wooden axles from some old 'pinewood derby' car kits.

All that's left to cover is the iron work for the hounds, swingle tree, axlepins, and harness. This is going to require digging out the camera because I didn't take pics when I was making them. They'll be up on Monday after I get back from MKA&S. Also starting Monday, in time to get it finished for Pennsic will be the "Oseberg" wagon. I'm working on plans in Google Sketch-up and it's slow going, but I'm digging in the pitons and climbing the learning curve.

Lastly, for your viewing pleasure...

This is a shot of my daughter Caitlin's "Fairy glade in a forest at night" bedroom. The bed is a "talan" or "flet" such as the elves of Lorien use :-) Its tree trunks, and the supports for the bookcases were made from horse-chestnut trees that had to come down due to storm damage, and the ladder from some overgrown areas of tulip poplar that needed to be cleared.

Being now a teenager, and fairy-glens being "for little kids," the theme was recently changed to a tropical beach by the addition of a wall mural, and tropical plants and new lighting.

Wheels are kewl, but to make all that work practical we need to mount them to the poles and a frame. There are innumerable options for this stage. After a lot of thought I concluded the best way would be cross bars at the front and back with mortise and tenons to the poles, with the poles slid through mortises in the axle. Thus no fasteners required, and as the green wood shrinks it pulls all the joinery tighter together. Above is a view from the back with the wheels mounted on the axles.

This is the right (starboard) pole passing through the axle tree.

This is the front cross bar tenoned into the starboard pole

And here is the rear cross bar tenoned into the starboard pole.

There's nothing exceptionally complicated about the crossbars. The poles were set parallel about the right distance to clear the dog's shoulders at the front and two boards were ripped to slightly longer than the width of the cart. The were then tenoned with the shoulders set to the inner distance between poles. The mortises were angled slightly so that the crossbars tilt out at their tops about 7 degrees.

The Axletree though is much more complex. I could have simply cut a board, driven some bolts in for axles and left it at that. But anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

The axletree began as a slightly curved cut billet from the same tree that provided the wheel hubs. Since oak is a heavy dense wood it is desirable to trim the piece of unneeded excess, which also produces a more aesthetically pleasing look.

After some work with the drawknife it was run through the planer and then squared by eye with the table saw and a little work on the jointer.

You can see the top, front and back have been squared, and the bottom (with some bark still on) shows the natural curve of the board.

A dowel from one of the hub fiddles is used to mark out where the wood will be cut away for the axles.

Unfortunately, the step-by-step of pics of the axle seem to have wandered off... My first thought was to make a springpole lathe and turn the axles but due to the curved grain and some beetle channels it started to be a PITA. So I switched the improvised lathe bed to a fiddle and proceeded to use a saw and draw knife to shape the axles and cut out the arch from the bottom of the axle.

After cutting the waste away I was left with square axles, needless to say that is not an efficient shape, so I used the draw knife to slowly shave away the excess. The two bars on the side of the fiddle's bed are set parallel and the top is set to slightly higher than where I want the eventual diameter of the axles. The sloooowwwwww process is shave, turn the axletree a little, shave, turn, rinse and repeat.

Eventually we arrive at this:

and this:

You can see where I routed coves on some of the edges with a 3/4" radius bit. The mortises were cut to slide the poles in. The carriage bolt in the shot of the axle is there because when I went to cut the mortise I found more beetle damage that was not apparent from the outside. The board cracked between the mortise and the end during the first try fitting. I spread the crack slightly, shot in glue, and then bolted the split end back together nice and strong. I possibly could have relied on glue alone, but this is the most stressed point in the entire cart, so no sense taking chances.

To assemble; the front cross bar was placed in its mortises, the axletree slid on, then the poles pulled slightly apart and the rear cross bar inserted into its mortises and the wheels slid on the axles. The axle is not pinned to the poles as the mortises are so tight the showed no inclination to shift, and the bed (when installed) would provide further bracing.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

Well, the internet is down for a tad so we'll just move along off-line and ya'll can catch up later.

I've been asked, "Can you use dowels for spokes?" The answer is yes, surely. I didn't use them here mostly because I don't care for a perfectly cylindrical spoke from an aesthetic point of view. This illustration from (which was one of the primary inspirations for our wheels) shows cylindrical spokes with the slightest taper.

The Djebjerg wagon also shows nearly cylindrical spokes.

The period wheel would have had a tenon cut on the end (you can see them clearly above) but this can be avoided in a small wagon or cart simply by controlling the depth of the mortises either by drilling or, if you've cut the mortise into the hole for the axle, placing a piece of copper or other pipe in the hole as a bearing.

It's harder to do at the felloe end, and would be best handled, I think, by drilling the mortise slightly deep and then dry fitting and shimming until the spoke "bottoms." Cutting the spoke long and trimming the spoke seems to me to be a more potentially frustrating method.Perhaps you could try using an expanding glue like 'Gorilla Glue,' but, I don't recommend glue on the spokes except as a last resort--fitting them is tricky and adding the extra complication of trying to fit them in within the glue's working time strikes me as a recipe for disaster.

The main problem with cutting the mortises for the spoke felloe tenons is that they must beexactly on the radius.

Here's the jig that let's you do that. (I might add that I wouldn't consider making spoked wheels without having a good drill press handy.) The jig is made from two boards set square (checked and marked with a try-square and screwed: accuracy is critical here) and a cut off from one of the felloes. This picture doesn't show it yet, but after the curved piece is mounted you should roll a piece of pipe so it comes to rest at the very 'bottom dead center' and make a reference mark.

The felloe then gets set in the jig like so:

Let me back up a sec. Normally when you're cutting you make the cut a bit proud of the line and go back and shape later. The felloe pattern should be cut as close as possible to a tight fit on the spokes, and the felloes should be cut as exactly as possible so they fit the jig (and the wheel).

I also see I missed a step with the spokes. (that's one of the problems with going back later from memory and picture files--oh, well...) once the spokes are all set nice and tight in the hub, the hub needs to be mounted in a hub fiddle again. I mounted mine over the table saw, but there are other options.

This has to square to the hub, to saw, to the dado blade, and (according to Thomas Aquinas) the universe. Use clamps. When the saw is fired up the wheel is rotated and the dado blade trims the end of spokes so they are perfectly centered on the axle hole. The hub/spoke assembly is then returned to wheel jig

and a combination square is used to set the distance from the tenon end to the shoulder.

On one tenon I found the shoulder too far from the end (the others all required little or no trimming).

This was fixed by gluing a wood "washer" in place and trimming with a coping saw and shaping with a Dremel to match the decorative cove of the spoke--the repair is unnoticeable.

Okay, back to that felloe we left sitting in the jig. Drill out a mortise deep enough to fit the tenon and go back and dry fit. Oh, yeah, make sure when you marked the felloe you marked which mortise goes to which spoke. Dry fit the felloes to the wheel. When every thing fits together well it's time to glue the felloes together. Some builders recommend a dowel or spline in the joint between felloes for alignment and support. Since this wheel is for such a light weight cart I didn't bother. Instead, I used "Gorilla Glue" which expands into the wood on both sides of a joint, and in the case of pine, makes a joint stronger than the surrounding wood.

I slathered on the glue put waxed paper over the joints, and then used a strap clamp (cargo strap with ratchet) to pull the felloes tight. Then I applied heavy duty spring clamps to the sides so all the joints lined up nice. The waxed paper is to keep the squeezed out glue from gluing the strap and clamps to the wheel.

When all the glue is dry I popped the wheel in the workmate bench (a wonderfully useful tool) and sanded everything up nice and smooth.

If you look back to the first picture you see that between the spokes the wheel has been carved away a bit. This serves absolutely no function, but it is pretty.

After using a 1/2" round over bit and router to shaped the outer edge of the wheels I grabbed a plastic container I had lying around and marked the sides of the felloes to replicate the decorative cove. I cut these with a 45 deg. bit in a rotozip starting it as a climbing cut (with the grain) by eye. You need to be a little practiced at this or you risk the bit jerking you along and buggering up the cut, but the rotozip is a handy tool for this sort of thing.

Voila! Time to step back and admire your handiwork. Let me mention again that making spoked wheels is a lengthy, finicky, tedious, irritating process. From the description here it sounds like you only dry fit a few times, in reality it's over and over and over and over. I respect anyone who goes to the trouble of making spoked wheels, but truly, for most SCA uses I wouldn't bother. Though another nifty aspect is that once you've made all these jigs later wheels are easier, and you can make spinning wheels, too. (Fionnseach and I are working on one for a Creative Anachronist, to be blogged down the road).

Lastly, this is not a wheel, it's my first try at a loaf of rye bread with caraway, Yum!

Thursday, May 20, 2010

I should probably mention at this point that dog carts are not my prime interest. Building it was often amusing, but I still regard wagons as superior to carts for SCA use, and as soon as I can finish up blogging the dog cart build I want to get back to small wagons. This is a shot of what's still my favorite build--the 'oseberg' wagon.

As you can see it breaks down completely for transport, and all the parts fit in the wagon bed (Duke Sir Rhinohide not included). The curved plywood bed is a little bit complicated to build, but it's amazingly light and strong.

I'll also be putting up plans for the first "Caitlin Hauler" which doesn't breakdown for transport, but is sturdy as all get out.

So for those of you who are looking for small wagons we'll be back there soon...

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The parts of the wheel that make it round are the felloes (sometimes fellies). In this picture you can see the hubs with spokes in the background and the board with felloe patterns in the foreground.

To make the felloe patterns a beam compass was used to layout two concentric circles. The inner has a radius equal to the distance from the center of the hub to the shoulder of the spoke'sfelloe tenon, and the outer has a radius about 3" wider.

The pattern was then laid over the spokes to double check fit, and was cut into four pieces with the ends about half way between spokes. Don't forget that this removes 1/2" inch total from the pattern (1/8" kerf x 4 cuts) the loss must be restored when marking the felloes for cut out or the pieces will not be a perfect circle.

To make the felloes I had hoped to be able to use some rough cut oak from a friend with a sawmill, but scheduling just didn't work out, so pine 2x12 that I had on hand was substituted.

When working with wheel a fixture to support them is handy. I made this one by screwing a '4" toilet flange' with a '2" into 4" union' to the work table. This view shows the felloes mounted.

Once the pieces were cut out I clamped them together with spring clamps and laid them over the spokes. Then I marked the felloes for the spoke mortises. Using a straight edge I 'shot' a line on the felloe side, then with the combination square transferred the line across the inner surface of the felloe, then crossed this at the dead center.

The next step was to build a jig for drilling the felloe spoke mortises precisely on the radius. This one is a tad complicated so I'll put it in a later post.

Thank you for the compliment, John. This prompted me to go back and re-read this blog. Since last night it's had over 150 hits, so I guess there's some interest, and I'm thinking maybe I should continue it from where I left off.

I've had a lot of other irons in the fire this past year both mundane and SCA, and my irritations regarding the dog-cart and the A&S faire system have mostly simmered down, so I sorta feel up to doing this again.

Here's an older shot of the assembled cart. Since then I've added wrought iron parts for the swingle tree and hounds, and a drafting harness. We'll cover those later, for now let's get back to the wheels...

When last we'd met the wheel hubs were cut, rough shaped, and mortised and I was about ready to move on to the spokes. First, the hubs.

Once again the hubs were mounted in the hub fiddle and given another light sanding. There was some light checking from unequal shrinkage of the drying wood. This was expected. Drying billets of wood without checking is virtually impossible. If the checking had split through at one of the spoke mortises I'd have been screwed, but luck held and the checks are all minor and cosmetic. Eventually they were filled with homemade wood putty--sawdust (really fine dusty stuff from the spindle sander) mixed with glue. I know this method has been used since at least the 1700s. Though I've never come across a reference to a period piece having been filled in such a manner, it seems to me logical that if a period woodworker was faced with filling such a gap he would either cut small wedges of wood and drive them in or just ignore the checks, or stuff some oakum mixed with hide glue in the crack. We do know that in shipwrighting checks were filled with oakum/pine tar. Not having any oakum, and not liking the stickiness of pine tar, I went with this.

Wheel hubs check, thus hub irons (hub bronzes?) were put on the hubs. We have many of these found in wagon graves from the bronze age. To make them I went to the scrap pile and pulled out some 3" bronze fittings still soldered to some old drain pipe I'd pulled. Some work with the torch and the fittings were off, then the hub of the fitting was cut off with an angle grinder with a metal cutting blade, and cleaned up on the wire wheel.

Using the dremel with a coarse sanding bit I carved down the hub to slightly oversized (just enough bigger I had to use a hammer to start it). Then I took the hub outside, set the hub iron in place, put a piece of 2x6 over it and whaled away with a 10 pound sledge. Them suckers are on. Okay, were on. Some further shrinkage loosened one to the extent that I resoldered a piece of copper pipe in it, narrowing it and restoring the friction fit.The last thing to be done to prep the hubs for the spokes was to flatten a shoulder from the spoke to rest on (marked in red).

The mortises were labeled with roman numerals for the starboard hub and letters for the port. This is essential as the tenons are cut to fit a particular mortise perfectly, and when done will only fit that mortise. Once the hub irons were taken care of it was time to move on to the spokes. I mentioned earlier I had wanted to use green oak from a tree that came down in a storm, but the wood turned out to have been "beetled." So I eventually went with some seasoned oak from an old project. The first step was to cut out blanks (with extras). The center of one end was found and marked.

I made a jig to hold the spokes upright and square in the drill press and using a plug cutting bit shaped the round tenon that will go into the mortise of the felloes.

Once this was done the tenons were cut on the opposite end using the dado head on the table saw. These were all cut slightly oversize to the intended mortise and marked to orientation on the hub as well as the intended mortise hole.

I then made a jig to hold the spokes so a taper could be cut using the sliding compound miter saw.

The laser guide is a wonderful 'extra' to have on this sort of project. The front block used in the cuts is not yet attached to the jig in this shot.

This picture shows the second step. First, all the spokes had a taper cut on one side with all the blocking on the jig set "square." To taper the opposite side the the blocking already installed was left in place an the front block was reattached to support the angled side.

A decorative cove was then routed on the edges of the spokes. This gives them a lighter look, but has no structural purpose. I use a roto-zip with a 1/2" radius bit. The same jig as held the spokes for cutting the taper was used to hold them for this step. Finally the waste around the felloe tenon was cut off with a coping saw.

At point it was time to fit each hub mortise an tenon, a tedious and painstaking process involving innumerable dry fits and filing until each spoke required moderate taps of the mallet to fit snugly into the mortise and a good bit of effort to remove. For this part loose is bad. As the hub continues to shrink while drying the spokes will be held in place even more firmly.

Time for supper; the next post will cover shaping the felloes and finishing the wheels.

Monday, March 30, 2009

I first came across this poem in fifth grade, in a class taught by a wonderful "old-school" teacher, Miss Diana Hill (it was always "Miss" never ever Ms.). A woman who didn't just grow old gracefully, but exuberantly. She was well past sixty when I had her for English, History, Homeroom, and I count myself lucky to have known her. Silver-haired, clear eyed, with a tongue like an adze, a mind like a razor, and a zeal and zest for teaching. If you picture the heroine from "Titanic" as the old woman, combine her with the best of Peter O'Toole's "Mr. Chips," and add a dash Puck, that was Miss Diana Hill. When I was in 7th grade I took oil painting lessons, and Miss Diana Hill was another student in the artist's class, still trying new things.

We say "kids these days don't know what it was like way back when;" a trite expression, but I truly regret my daughters never got to hear from her what WWI was like to a teenager, or how families came both together and apart in the great depression, about letters from former students from Anzio, and Truk, and Iwo, about Lindburgh and Apollo, and the first time a television came to town, and being faced with a mimeograph with no instructions--talk about the terrors of technology. So much of our past is vision that can't be shared; bright, personal images that are fleeting as soap bubbles.

Anyway, this poem has been running through my head as I've cut trees, planed "white wood that cuts like cheese" and tried to get into the head of a 14th century joiner, whilst using 21st century tools. Enjoy...

HAVE you heard of the wonderful one-hoss-shay,That was built in such a logical wayIt ran a hundred years to a day,And then, of a sudden, it--ah, but stayI'll tell you what happened without delay,Scaring the parson into fits,Frightening people out of their wits,--Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five,Georgius Secundus was then alive,--Snuffy old drone from the German hive;That was the year when Lisbon-townSaw the earth open and gulp her down,And Braddock's army was done so brown,Left without a scalp to its crown.It was on the terrible earthquake-dayThat the Deacon finished the one-hoss-shay.

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what,There is always somewhere a weakest spot,--In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill,In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace,--lurking still,Find it somewhere you must and will,--Above or below, or within or without,--And that's the reason, beyond a doubt,A chaise breaks down, but doesn't wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as Deacons do),With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou,"He would build one shay to beat the taown'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun';It should be so built that it couldn' break daown!--"Fur," said the Deacon, "t's mighty plainThut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain;'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain,Is only jestT' make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folkWhere he could find the strongest oak,That couldn't be split nor bent nor broke,--That was for spokes and floor and sills;He sent for lancewood to make the thills;The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees,The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese,But lasts like iron for things like these;The hubs of logs from the "Settler's ellum,"Last of its timber,--they couldn't sell 'em,Never an axe had seen their chips,And the wedges flew from between their lipsTheir blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,Steel of the finest, bright and blue;Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hideFound in the pit when the tanner died.That was the way he "put her through.""There!" said the Deacon, "naow she'll dew."

Do! I tell you, I rather guessShe was a wonder, and nothing less!Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,Deacon and deaconess dropped away,Children and grandchildren--where were they?But there stood the stout old one-hoss-shayAs fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED;--it came and foundThe Deacon's Masterpiece strong and sound.Eighteen hundred increased by ten;--"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.Eighteen hundred and twenty came;--Running as usual; much the same.Thirty and forty at last arrive,And then come fifty, and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of all we value hereWakes on the morn of its hundredth yearWithout both feeling and looking queer.In fact, there's nothing that keeps its youthSo far as I know, but a tree and truth.(This is a moral that runs at large;Take it.--You 're welcome.--No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER,--the Earthquake-day.--There are traces of age in the one-hoss-shay--A general flavor of mild decay,But nothing local, as one may say.There couldn't be,--for the Deacon's art,Had made it so like in every part,That there wasn't a chance for one to start.For the wheels were just as strong as the thills,And the floor was just as strong as the sills,And the panels just as strong as the floor,And the whippletree neither less nor more,And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,And spring and axle and hub encore,And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubtIn another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, 'Fifty-five!This morning the parson takes a drive.Now, small boys, get out of the way!Here comes the wonderful one-hoss-shay,Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay."Huddup!" said the parson. --Off went they.The parson was working his Sunday's text,--Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexedAt what the--Moses--was coming next.

All at once the horse stood still,Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill--First a shiver, and then a thrill,Then something decidedly like a spill,--And the parson was sitting upon a rock,At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock,--Just the hour of the Earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found,When he got up and stared around?The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,As if it had been to the mill and ground!You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,How it went to pieces all at once,--All at once, and nothing first,--Just as bubbles do when they burst.

Sunday, March 29, 2009

So, I've basically been napping for a month, and the mostly completed dog-cart sprang into being suddenly after a major headache, like Athena.

Not.

I swear remodeling looks soooo easy on the DIY shows. When we bought our house 8 years ago shortly before our wedding I 'guesstimated' a five year renovation plan. Despite being a lifelong conservative there must be some Bolshevik in me as I haven't come close to meeting any five year plan yet. Sigh.

The house had a very large 2.5 car garage. When we moved in I started out putting the McKennawerks in the garage, since it had nice 10' ceilings; but Gen, bless her, kept bugging me to move to the much larger basement area, even though it has a lower ceiling, insisting I would need the room. She was right, of course, as she almost always is. Having the extra floor space was needed. According to McKenna's Shop Law: the workshop always expands to fill the available space. This inevitably left a 25'x 26' garage to do something with.

A few years on we found a beautiful leaded glass front door with side lights and a palladian window at lowe's for $500, one tenth it's list price. It had been returned twice for being too large. When we spotted it on yet another Lowe's run Gen innocently said, "I wonder how much they want for that?" I logically responded, "Waaaay more than we can afford, that thing's at least 3 grand, new." Despite my impeccable logic Gen went off to ask the manager how much. His response was, "If you promise not to bring it, back how does $500 sound?" Score!

Of course, even with 10' ceilings it was too tall, so emergency crash remodel project # 473 rip out 16' steel garage door, frame new opening, and reframe rafters to install a cathedral ceiling to clear the 11.5' palladian window. The decision was made to go with a "morrocan" decorating theme, and in fits and starts we've added storage, a raised section of floor enclosed for a laundry room and half bath, installed a wood burning stove, new wiring, new high "E" windows, ad exhausteum.

But now we've finally gotten close enough to finishing that Gen has declared that she wants one room totally, completely, absolutely, done -- or I walk the plank.

Anyway, to save life and limb I've been putting a lot of time into finishing the "Peacock Room," named for the subject of a huge beautiful stained glass window I brought back from Tijuana. In the course of the last month, between trying to get the dog-cart ready for Kingdom A&S I've been plumbing, wiring, installing track lighting, painting, taping sheetrock, and getting ready to venetian plaster the ceiling preparatory to tiling the floor (the tile has been 'aging' gracefully in storage since about a month after we bought the house--it was on sale at another Lowe's closing sale for about 10 cents/sq.ft.).

On the dog-cart project, much was done, but until about the last 9 days much of it was "more of the same." The second side pole was cut, shaped, steamed, and fortunately didn't split, the wheel hubs dressed, and parts cut for later assembly. Then once laundry room mostly done, and with deadlines fast approaching I declared that since the washer and dryer were once again working I was off to the McKennawerks--hold my calls.

After a marathon of flying sawdust I had only the paperwork left to do, and at the last minute the #&^$ing computer swallowed my file folder of documentation without a burp. S*%#!

Despite having to hand write something totally inadequate on the drive up, and printing out a copy of the blog to this point, I managed a second, so it's on to Kingdom A&S in May, even though the pent went down the toilet.

Now that I can finally breathe again, it's time to transfer all the pics from the camera to the computer, and catch this thing back up. This would be a lot easier if I could touch-type...

Rather than one reaaallly long post that will take me a week to write, tomorrow I'm going to start posting a buncha small, probably disjointed, entries.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

King Edward the Confessor giving alms to a leper in a cart. A 1517 woodcut by Hans Burgkmair (1473-1531), part of a series of images of diverse saints done for a commission by Emperor Maximilian I .

One of the points of discussion around small wagons and carts being used to haul small loads and kids around SCA events is: would it have been done in period? After many years of searching I finally came across an illustration of such a period use. So we can say that at least the concept was not totally foreign to a medieval person.

It should be noted in the woodcut that one of the conventions Burgkmair employed in his woodcuts was to make the saint being portrayed "larger than life." Therefore, the cart should be regarded as proportional to the unfortunate leper, not to the 'heroically' sized St. Edward.

The picture is found in "Bottoms Up! A Pathologist's Essays on Medicine & the Humanities," by William B. Ober, MD, page 144, fig. 6.32, ISBN 0-00-097188-6, lccn 88-45120.